Medical Transcription: Strategies For Outsourcing

by Renee Kelly
Expert

What is the strategy to be adopted for outsourcing?

Identify healthcare process: This will show the healthcare facility the flow of work and identify processes that can be outsourced and those, which are to be retained in-house.

The typical workflow for healthcare would be as follows:

· Appointment by patient to visit doctor/emergency visit

· Filling up of demo forms

· Doctor visit

· Dictation of notes

· Medical transcription

· Medical coding

· Medical billing

· Insurance claims processing

· Re-imbursement

· Follow up of payment over and above insurance re-imbursement.

This flow clearly shows that the first four tasks cannot be outsourced but other tasks like medical transcription can be outsourced.

Assess the feasibility of outsourcing

Can the process of creating patient records be executed outside the healthcare facility premises?

With the advent of Internet, it is possible for this process to be executed outside the physical premises of the healthcare facility.

Are there any security implications to outsourcing the process of creating patient records?

Security of confidential patient health information has to be ensured. Care has to be taken to make sure that the service provider is HIPAA and HITECH complaint and covered under a business associate agreement.

Can these services be customized to match the requirements of the healthcare facility?

The needs of different healthcare facilities is different, care has to be taken to source a service provider who can cater to different volumes, formats and specialties and according to the turnaround time specified.

Can the service provider’s performance be monitored?

The performance of a service provider can be monitored in terms of accuracy and turnaround time.

Sourcing the service provider

Cost: Reducing expenses is perhaps one of the main reasons for outsourcing, Care has to be taken that the cost per line of transcription parameters are understood completely before comparing quotes.

Turnaround time: Turnaround time is an important factor that affects both the healthcare and profitability aspect of the healthcare facility.

Availability of talent pool: To make sure that a service provider can provide continuous and consistent service it is important to evaluate the talent pool available to the service provider.

Risks: This refers both to the risk of poor quality as well as security of information. To mitigate this assurances of quality level and the security measures taken by the service provider need to be evaluated

What is the value proposition of outsourcing medical transcription?

Speed: Outsourcing ensures the speedy creation of medical records under all circumstances.

Profit increase: Outsourcing brings down the cost per line of transcription and improves the bottom line. It also helps increase profits by shortening the receivables cycle.

Increased process efficiency: Outsourcing transcription increases the efficiency of the healthcare process by making information available to the healthcare professionals on time.

Improved Management focus: Outsourcing medical transcription improves the management focus by freeing up valuable resources like real estate, supervisory staff, capital investment etc.

Following a systematic process of defining the purpose of outsourcing and the desired outcome leaves the healthcare facilities in a better position to source the right service provider.

Article submitted Friday, July 08, 2011 & read 27 times.

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